Critical Thinking Skills

How to Make a Paper Airplane

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Have you ever made a paper airplane? Did you learn how to make it from a book? Or maybe it was from the kid you shared a desk with in the third grade? I fall into the second camp, learning from my friends in school. And for all of the hundreds of airplanes we made, [...]

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Inspired by Nature: Four Easy Steps to Follow a Child’s Interests

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Do you have bees, birds, squirrels, deer, possum, or other creatures milling around your neighborhood? It’s been wild animal week here at Casa Tinkerlab. We had two big discoveries at our house: a wasp nest in the eaves by our back door and a bird nest tucked into a hole along the siding of our [...]

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Make a Simple Room Fort

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Hello Tinker-firends! I’ve been busy with some family business and book edits that are taking a toll on my late-night blogging time. How are you doing? Until I get a better handle on these details I thought I’d share some quick snippets of tinkering inspiration from our days at home and out-and-about. Today we have [...]

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Vegetable-Dyed Easter Eggs

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This post was originally shared in April 2011. I’m trying to make a move away from synthetic food dyes and wanted to use natural, homemade dyes this year. Not only are these colors absolutely healthy for human consumption, but the process of making them is a wonderful lesson in creating art materials from scratch and [...]

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Creativity and Education Interestingness

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It’s been a while since I’ve done a round-up of creativity and education resources, and since a few pieces of interestingness have crossed my desk this week, I wanted to take a minute to share these great resources with you! I hope you enjoy them and that they give you some food for thought. And [...]

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Homemade {Easy, Low-cost} Light Table

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My 2-year old came down with a fever last week and we’ve been more or less house-bound. It’s no fun at all, but it’s made me pretty resourceful around the house. One big win was pulling out our homemade light table. My 4-year old, who used to love this box, seems to have grown out [...]

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Paint with glue, and how to make your own colored glue

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My 2-year old is going through the phase of wanting to squeeze all the life out of any tube of paint, toothpaste, or glue that crosses her path. Have you had, or do you have, a child in that phase as well? I remember this phase well. When my older daughter hit it, I made [...]

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Easy String Art Experiments for Kids

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“The painting has a life of its own. I try to let it come through.” – Jackson Pollack, American Painter String Art Creating string art is a fun mix of art, creative thinking, and experimentation all rolled into one open-ended package. If you’ve been following this blog for a while you’ll know that when it comes [...]

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Marbled Paper Suminagashi

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Are you looking for a last-minute hands-on gift, or maybe an idea to bookmark for a cold winter day? I’ve been saving this Suminagashi kit for a quiet morning and it was a true winner with both my 2-year old and 4-year old. The process of marbleizing paper encourages creative thinking, open-ended exploration with ink [...]

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